Flying High Above Oneonta NY

If I were a millionaire I would do aerial photography full time for clients. I would purchase my own plane and get certified to be a pilot. Use my flying hobby to offer services for other people into photography or people who want to sky dive. Unfortunately I’m not a millionaire, but I do get a chance to do this twice a year shooting aerial photography for the SUNY Oneonta campus. On this particular day I had a flight out of SUNY Oneonta airport to shoot aerial photography for the campus. It was a beautiful 65 degree day out, and the sky was crystal clear. We shoot at Noon since the shadows will be the most minimal on the campus and the surrounding trees. We shoot in the Fall and in the Spring so we don’t have leaves and other objects obstructing our view.

I arrived at the airport early to meet my pilot Rob who was flying in from Cooperstown. He is a 15 year pilot who teaches flying class at SUNY Oneonta. The small plane we use, we have to take the door off so I can lean out the side and hold the camera vertical to capture a good shot of the buildings on campus. We pack into the lane and prepare for takeoff. The wind is blowing hard, and the flay shifts to the right as we begin to lift off the runway. My heart falls into my stomach as we drop from loss of wind flow, and then rise quickly. We begin to turn and make our way towards the campus.

We take a grid pattern at about 1000 feet above campus flying back and forth computing images. The images will be used by office like our facilities offices on campus to survey the property and plan future projects. They can also be used to map out key points and features, and make a good time line of the changes that have been done to dorms, classrooms and landscaping throughout the years. We complete the grid pattern of campus and start to make our way up to 5,000 feet to get more images. The wind is clod and the temperature drops to below freezing. Off in the distance I see what looks like bald eagle. Rob my pilot sees it to and we decide to try to fly over and get a shot of it. With my zoom lens I can get very close images of things, but this magnificent bird was just too fast and we lost it almost as soon as we saw it.

I have a fear of heights but for some reason once we are off the ground and in the air, all that fear goes away. I realized this the first time I hung out of the plane with nothing but a lab belt holding me in that the perspective was a lot different and I didn’t get and uneasy unstable feeling and fear of heights. We head back to the airport and capture some images of the college camp and our telescopes they use to study the stars. Making our way to the runway my fear of heights comes back, the ground and my perspective changes again as we get closer and closer. We are coming in fast to the run way and again the wind begins to push the plane to the right. We come down so fast and bump down and the wheels chirp. What a great flight, and once I know we are safe on the ground my heart stops racing.

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